Chapter 311: Tetsu the Natural Gossip
"That's what a real strikeout machine looks like…"
Of course, Miyuki would never say that out loud.
"Shame it was a ball, though."
He said it mostly to hide the embarrassment of missing the catch.
"But you didn't catch it."
"Guh—!"
A direct critical hit.
"You finally get a perfect breaking pitch, and you still can't use it in an actual game."
"That doesn't excuse your miss, Mr. Genius Catcher."
Miyuki desperately wanted to scratch his head in frustration, but he refused to show that side in front of this man.
"In a real matchup, the batter would just take it! If the fastball's quick enough, the hitter won't have time to identify the pitch. That pitch alone would've blown past their bat. And I never planned to pitch in real games anyway. It's just an experiment to satisfy my curiosity. Also—fact remains, you missed. A catcher shouldn't run from responsibility."
Miyuki clenched his jaw.
"I won't miss the next one."
"My curiosity's satisfied. I'm done throwing that pitch."
crack!
Miyuki nearly threw his back out.
"How cruel… he's going to nail me to the pillar of shame forever at this rate."
"At least throw another. Give me a chance to redeem myself! I need to be reborn as a functioning human—huh?" Miyuki's mouth outran his brain.
"Oh? So you weren't human before? Makes sense now."
"What part 'made sense' to you?!"
"There's another pitch I'm curious about."
"What pitch?" Miyuki took the bait instantly.
"Changeup."
"Changeup? You can throw that?"
By now, Miyuki had completely forgotten about the missed catch. Shame meant nothing to a truly shameless man.
"Nope. Never tried. But yesterday, in that final at-bat, I saw that tsundere prince's hand position. So I figured I'd try."
"You saw the hand position…?"
Every time he said it, Miyuki questioned his own existence.
And it wasn't just him—the resentment leaking from outside the door could've filled the stadium.
"I think it was like this… and like this. Okay. Catch it, black-bellied glasses."
"If you're ready, bring it."
Miyuki realized he now spoke entirely in Sendo's rhythm.
"Alright… breathe…," Sendo murmured as he gathered himself.
Leg lift.
Separation.
Stride.
Arm whip.
thud!
But not into the glove.
"...…"
Miyuki's face froze into something strangely cute.
Then—
"HAAHAHAHAHA!!!"
He doubled over, clutching his stomach.
The ball had dropped straight into the dirt directly in front of Sendo—just like Sawamura's chaotic early days.
"Pff—p-pff!"
Behind the door, several people covered their mouths. Even Rei was snickering.
Thankfully Miyuki's laughter drowned them out.
Sendo stared at his hand, puzzled.
He'd used full natural arm motion—no forced manipulation.
It shouldn't have died like that.
Watching Miyuki roll on the ground only made him angry.
"What are you laughing at, bastard?" Sendo said with a gentle smile—while choking Miyuki from behind.
"That face is kind of terrifying—!"
Miyuki kicked his legs helplessly. Strong as he was, his leverage was terrible. Against someone even stronger, he was little more than a cat toy.
Just then, Sendo noticed the back of his hand.
"Oh. I see. My fingers are too long."
The choke loosened.
Miyuki almost reversed it into a murder attempt out of spite.
Those long fingers and huge hands were straight-up talent. No wonder his fast split dropped faster and more explosively than Furuya's, and no wonder his fastball and control were absurd.
Of course, Miyuki had zero ability to resist at the moment.
Murder would have to wait for dreamland. Dreams had no consequences.
Sendo sank into thought again. No way he could mentally endure messing up twice in a row.
"Oi! Let go! I'm dying!"
Turns out while Sendo was thinking, his grip instinctively tightened. Miyuki nearly got strangled for real.
"Oh—sorry." Sendo quickly released him.
"Hah—hah—hah… you need to be more careful! I almost died!"
"You're right. If I killed you, I'd be troubled."
"Exactly—"
"After all, I'd have no one to experiment with."
Miyuki's eyebrow twitched violently.
Even knowing it was a joke didn't make it less infuriating.
"Oi—!"
"Alright. Continuing." Sendo cut him off.
"You figured out a solution?" Miyuki forgot all annoyance instantly.
In his own way, Miyuki was also a baseball idiot—obsessed not with batting or winning, but with pitching, catching, and freedom.
"Not a solution really. More like cheating."
"Stop dragging it out and spit it out."
For Sendo, Miyuki used a very different tone than with the twin pitchers.
"If my fingers are too long and cap the ball downward, then I just won't let the upper halves touch the ball."
"In other words…"
"Cheating. Zero practical use. But it's just an experiment."
pop!
This time it entered cleanly—dead center.
"As expected."
"Expected? It's dead middle with zero life! Might as well be soft toss!"
"But you couldn't tell it was a slow ball from my arm whip, right?"
Miyuki froze.
Because that was true.
Arm speed was identical to his fastball.
Meanwhile, the pitch itself was maybe 100–110 km/h.
Ordinary numbers—except Sendo's fastball averaged over 150 km/h.
For a high school hitter, 150+ meant swinging before release.
That made the slowball terrifying.
For context:
In canon, Narumiya's reported top speed was 147 km/h.
Even so, Isashiki had to start his swing early just to stop mid-way on a slider.
And Narumiya's averages weren't even 145 at that time.
Tetsu swung late on Narumiya's center-cut fastball and fouled it off.
And Hongo in his second year?
Average 150+, four-square control, splitter—
comparable or stronger than senior-year Narumiya.
Furuya too—once in rhythm, just straight + splitter made Komadai helpless.
At that velocity, hitters could only read in/out, not pitch type.
That was the power of speed.
In MLB it was even stricter.
Only 160+ forced elite hitters to guess before release.
Below that, they had ~0.01 seconds to identify pitch type—enough to crush anything short of truly magical breaking balls.
Which was why elite hitters—earning ~$50,000 per swing—were paid so much.
MLB at-bats were gambling at 160+.
In modern baseball, fastballs were no longer the blunt instrument they used to be.
It wasn't like the old days—where a pitcher could just hurl central fastballs and bulldoze every hitter.
(Yes, looking at you, anime "Major" era.)
But that didn't mean fastballs had lost their throne.
At the highest level, even a pitcher with poor command—but elite velocity—plus a few rough, merely "good enough" breaking balls that could cross the zone, forced elite hitters to rely on pitch guessing.
And those hitters were very good at guessing.
It was also why Shohei Ohtani had become a global bidding war.
So Sendo's so-called changeup—well, let's generously call it a changeup—on its own would've been a home-run ball waiting to happen.
If, that is, it didn't come attached to a 150+ km/h fastball.
A speed gap of more than 40 km/h—unless the hitter miraculously guessed right—turned even "easy hits" into "magic balls."
And Sendo's mastery over psychology—especially micro-expressions and micro-movements—meant that if a hitter sat on one pitch type, he'd notice.
That made the matchup unsolvable.
"But still, I feel like the problem of it being too easy to hit… isn't totally unsolvable. Maybe if I controlled the ball using my thumb and ring finger… hm. This feels difficult."
"Then just practice it," Miyuki suggested.
"Forget it. Too much work. And it's not something you can learn quickly anyway. I'm not a pitcher—I'm a position player. I was just messing around today…"
"…Ah."
Only now did Miyuki realize—Sendo really had never intended anything more than satisfying his curiosity.
He wasn't "seeing the light" or "changing his mind."
He was just… playing.
"Hey, Tetsu! What are you doing?"
Just as Sendo was preparing to throw the last few pitches and call it a night, something unexpected happened outside the door.
While Jun was frozen for half a beat—
Tetsu walked straight into the room.
"Tetsu-san?" Miyuki stared, confused.
No one was supposed to be here at this hour.
Sendo stiffened.
Alarm bells ringing in his head.
Because Tetsu—innocent, airheaded, gossip-leaking Tetsu—had no filter whatsoever.
Just two nights ago, he'd casually sold Kuramochi out by telling Sawamura that Kuramochi was "very interested in Wakana."
"Why are you here? And how long have you been here?" Sendo asked carefully.
He felt like a ship sinking in a shallow ditch.
"We saw you two walking over with gloves, so we came to check," Tetsu answered without hesitation.
"So from the beginning— Wait. 'We'? Who's 'we'?"
Sendo suddenly sensed disaster.
As expected, Tetsu lived up to his title:
The Natural Gossip King.
With just the first sentence, he sold out the entire group.
Outside, panic erupted.
The seniors gave each other meaningful looks—
then shoved Isashiki forward to contain the damage and plug Tetsu's mouth.
Before Sendo could finish his question,
Isashiki walked in—wearing the expression of a man who had accepted death.
"It's just the two of us," Jun said calmly.
"Jun-san? You too?" Miyuki was starting to realize how bad this was.
"Don't tell me this bastard set a trap for me…
No… Tetsu never lies. So it really was a coincidence?" Sendo thought, staring suspiciously at Miyuki.
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